Rural town looks to technology

By Vicky Burger, ITWeb portals content / relationship manager

Johannesburg, 26 Sept 2007

Tsomo, a rural town in the Eastern Cape, is taking its first steps towards embracing technology by developing a maths, science and technology centre.

Tantas Tsotsi, a teacher at Step Ahead Primary School and project champion for the centre, said the organisers are looking towards technology to sustain and advance their town.

The institution seeks to use technology to facilitate learning not only for the children of Step Ahead Primary, but also for the Tsomo village and all the surrounding areas and locations, she adds.

"The teachers and children of Step Ahead will use the centre during the day, and in the evenings it will be used for a variety of educational endeavours, including adult education." Tsotsi says collaboration with NGOs in the area is also a possibility.

It is hoped the centre will have a science laboratory, technology room and computer room with Internet access. However, the project faces several challenges, Tsotsi says.

Obstacles

Angus Young, CEO of Amabubesi Capital Technologies, which has given of its time, resources and funding to the development of the centre, cites a severe lack of funding as the first challenge: "Most of the parents cannot afford to pay school fees, and any money that does come in barely covers the teachers' salaries, leaving very little available for further development."

Young describes the classrooms as small huts with corrugated roofs. New structures suitable for the centre will need to be built. While the local municipality has leased the centre a piece of ground for the next 20 years, it has six months to start building and make use of the land or it faces the possibility of the municipality reclaiming it, he adds.

Tsotsi and Young agree that the infrastructure of the town, specifically relating to technology, is virtually non-existent. There are no landlines at the school and television reception is not readily available, severely limiting resources available to teachers and pupils.

In addition to this, in order to establish viable computer-based training, teachers must be trained on how to use computers as a teaching aid. Young explains that Tsotsi is studying methodology and computer skills so she can share this knowledge with the seven teachers onboard. Finding relevant content that is applicable is an additional challenge they face, Young adds.

There are no people in Tsomo or the surrounding areas that have any technical or IT-related skills; these skills will have to be imported, or a suitable person found and trained in order to maintain the computers and the network once it is up and running.

Finally, the ultimate challenge of any project, company or scheme is sustainability. Young says the major test is ensuring that once the centre has been established and is operational, it will become self-sustaining.

Young and Tsotsi both express confidence that the centre will prove its worth to the community and become self-sustaining through its adult education classes and other planned programmes.